History

Introduced in 1988, Irish Lotto was the first national lotto game of the Republic of Ireland. The Irish lotto has remained the most popular among Lotto players in Ireland since! Since its inception, the Irish Lotto has gone about a few updates and changes to ensure that the jackpots remain high and the player experience stays fresh and exciting. Originally the Irish lotto was 6/36 format, meaning you needed to match 6 numbers out of a possible 36 in order to jackpot. This was revised after a “brute force attack” on the Irish Lotto was taken by a Polish-Irish businessman who realized he could play the system by buying up all the tickets for a high jackpot game and guaranteeing a win in multiple categories. The player was successful and after spending over $800,000 on tickets he won a total of $1,166,000 including all prize divisions making him a profit of around $300,000. In 1992, as a result of the recent “brute force attack” the Irish Lotto was changed to a 6/39 game and later was revised up again to a 6/42 format. These two revisions of the Irish Lotto structure greatly increased the odds, making it harder to jackpot. After changing and re-changing the format of the Irish Lotto, the next big change was in the price of the ticket. The price of an Irish Lotto ticket increased by 50% in 1998 when the cost of a line was changed to $0.75 for the original $0.50. In 2002, with the introduction of the Euro, the price was changed again to €0.95 per line, while the minimum jackpot amount remained the same. November 2006 the format was changed again to be a 6/45 lotto game and resulted in bigger jackpots and longer odds. The minimum jackpot was doubled at the same time to €2,000,000. The most recent change to the Irish Lotto format was the increase to 47 numbers making the odds to win the jackpot 1 in 10.7 million.

Taxes

Winnings for the Irish Lotto from within Ireland are tax free, however, if you are playing from overseas then it is best to take advice on tax liabilities in your country.

Tips & tricks for increasing your odds

The best way to increase your odds of winning the Irish Lotto is to buy group game tickets. It really is pure logic & math. When you buy group game tickets you essentially ‘pool together’ your tickets and therefore increase your odds immensely. To help illustrate how this works better we have an example: If you wanted to buy a single ticket for the Irish Lotto draw it will cost you around €3 offline, and anywhere up to €6 per ticket online (This is an example, the cost of Irish Lotto tickets can vary from place to place and of course, over time). With a group game option, you buy shares in a group of tickets online. So, 50 tickets could make up one group. This group of 50 tickets is then split into 100 shares and each share can be sold separately, this way the player can buy a share in a group of 50 tickets for a price much cheaper than paying individually, it can be as little as €0.19 per ticket. If one of the group’s ticket is a winner then the winning amount will be split according to how many shares you have in winning group. So, if we have a group of 50 tickets, split into 100 shares and you buy 10 shares in the group, you own 10% of the group of 50 tickets. This means if the group of tickets has a winner in it, say €100,000.00 you would receive 10% of this total, meaning you would win €10,000.00.